The Daily Meal is pleased to present its eighth-annual ranking of the 101 best restaurants in America.

Dan Myers / The Daily Meal

101 Best Restaurants in America for 2018

#77 Topolobampo, Chicago

Topolobampo is named for a port city on the Gulf of California in northwestern Sinaloa. At this slightly fancier and more ambitious next-door cousin of his popular Frontera Grill, Rick Bayless serves irresistible Mexican fare of a kind not found outside some of the better restaurants of Mexico itself, if even there. It’s hard to believe that this Chicago institution is now more than 25 years old, especially since a redesign a couple years ago gave the restaurant a brand new feel, one that has critics falling in love with it all over again. Dishes are served in three different tasting menus: A five-course $90 Winter Tasting (including slow-roasted suckling pig with red chile and chestnut mole), a five-course $100 Classic Tasting (including wood-grilled Imperial Wagyu carne asada and ocean trout with cranberry escabeche), and a seven-course $120 Pre-Columbian menu, made entirely with indigenous Mexican ingredients.